


Three conversations Obi-Wan had after the Death Star

by Gabriel4Sam



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Bail and Breha still dies, Dark Side Whispers, Fix-It, Gen, Obi-Wan Kenobi Lives, Obi-wan survives the Death Star, Owen and Beru too, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies, Sorry parental figures
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-31
Updated: 2019-08-31
Packaged: 2020-10-04 07:04:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20466995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gabriel4Sam/pseuds/Gabriel4Sam
Summary: Obi-Wan survives Vader and tries to take care of three young souls.





	Three conversations Obi-Wan had after the Death Star

**Author's Note:**

  * For [WritLarge](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WritLarge/gifts).

> I was late, so late, but Wrennette is infinitely patient and a really good beta. Thank you, my dear!

Leia had entered the Death Star like she was descending into her own mausoleum. In her exhausted mind, it was fitting, in a way. The monstrous contraption which had destroyed Scarif would be her last step before the grave.

Then, there had been a too short Stormtrooper, a walking carpet, and a sarcastic rogue. There had been shots fired, and a garbage chute, and hope had reignited, like a spark starting a bonfire. The plans, the plans of that monstrosity were the best chance the rebellion had and now, she could deliver them…if they escaped.

Now, around them, the TIE fighters bark a deluge of fire, like a pack of small, savage beasts tearing at the throat of a larger animal.

Trying to tear apart, in fact, because the ship of Han Solo has teeth and he and Luke are sitting at the turrets, fighting back. Sitting in the cockpit, Leia watches, her heart in her throat. If they die in this battle, the death of Alderaan will be in vain. She wants to live, with a lust for life she thought lost when she saw her planet explode.

She wants to live, to avenge Alderaan, to tear the Empire apart. A cold shiver runs along her spine, changing her blood into ice in a wave of unknown fury, more dangerous for the calm that surrounds its core. She could murder, in that state of mind. She thirsts for the blood of Tarkin, of Vader; for their pain, to see them lose everything they hold dear, and make them watch, just like they made her. Just as a part of her recognizes, distantly, that her control of her emotions is better than that, normally, that she was raised better than that, warmth engulfs her and the ice recedes. General Kenobi has put his cloak around her shoulders.

“We will live today,” Kenobi says simply, “to rebuild,” and Leia wants to tell him she wants blood, revenge, she wants to throw away her principles to see Vader and Tarkin burn, but their gazes meet, and in the calm blue of his eyes, she sees a bottomless grief, like she carries in her heart.

“My father was happy, at the thought of seeing you again,” She says instead, and Kenobi smiles, old and kind and nothing like the brilliant, headstrong general of the stories, but his arm around her shoulders feels like an anchor, strong and sheltering, like a port in a storm.

“Sadly,” he says, “I know a little about losing my people. I won’t lie and say it will be alright.”

“You’re not very comforting.”

“But I will say this: it will get better, and an objective helps. A mission.”

“What was yours? When you escaped after the war?”

“Well, you and young Luke, of course. Luke, more specifically, but you were never far away from my mind.”

“What?”

“Oh, yes. Of course, you don’t know. We always said we would tell you together, and dear Bail and Breha were people of their word. Oh dear…. The Death Star, first, then we need to have an overdue conversation.”

She wants to pursue this conversation but he pats her hand:

“Allow an old man, whose mind is not as sharp as it used to be, a moment to gather his thoughts.”

“You can’t be serious! It seems like …like you said… Luke,” Leia whines, tumbling head first into a maelstrom of emotions, forgetting every notion of protocol ever drilled, with great difficulty, into her stubborn head, and General Kenobi’s mouth twitches.

In all his stories, her father never told how infuriating the man could be!

**********************************

The Death Star is dust, and Han’s head, which was only sought by Jabba, the thrice damned slug, and two or three exes with a grudge, will very probably be on every bounty hunter in the galaxy’s list in the days to come.

And yes, the Imperials.

That pesky problem of every Imperial who will now want him dead for helping the Rebels. Oh joy.

What was he thinking! He hadn’t even been drunk!!

On the edge of Yavin’s base, as the Rebels are packing up with military efficiency, despite an impressive collection of impressive hangovers, Han’s mounting worries look every minute more like full-blown panic, until a shuffling gait draws his attention.

Han isn’t a naïve farmer like Luke. He understands why the old man, whose steps were surer than the most limber Imperial spy on the Death Star, suddenly makes the same noise as a Gungan on dry soil. Kenobi smiles, light, self-deprecating, and Han glares harder. Despite himself, Han feels the _poor, innocent, totally not dangerous, definitely can’t kill people with my mind_, old man act works, as it had on Tatooine. It’s exasperating, especially since Han is old enough to remember Jedi shenanigans on the holo news. It shouldn’t work on him.

Kenobi sits next to him, and together, they watch the Rebels bundle up machines, explosives, parts, and sometimes a droid who doesn’t escape them quick enough, which spawns a quarter hour of comedy, as R2-D2 rescues his counterpart with violence Han didn’t expect of an astromech .

“Luke and Leia are very young,” Kenobi finally says.

“Hm, hmm,” Han answers. There. Totally not incriminating. He’s capable of learning, no matter what Chewie growls about his head and its contents.

“The crisis is reaching its boiling point,” the old man continues, not deterred.

“Long time coming,” Han can’t stop himself from adding.

“And they would certainly benefit from some guidance,” Kenobi half-smiles.

“They have the whole Rebel crew,” Han immediately says, “and also, aren’t you supposed to be subtle? Negotiator and all that.”

“I didn’t think you would appreciate being manipulated,” Kenobi remarks, and despite himself Han feels it working, that undisguised demand. Manipulated, yeah, he would hate that, especially from the man who is supposed to take care of Luke and Leia.

Those two will be trouble, he’s sure of it.

More trouble than the Death Star, even.

Oh, by the kriffin stars, they’re gonna get killed like two idiots. Luke has no survival instinct, and Leia isn’t much better, and he had only known them for a few days, he’s sure they can do worse than what already made him sweat. And Han isn’t touching on the hypocrisies of his opinion, coming back to protect Luke against Vader or not.

“Are you manipulating me by pretending you don’t want to manipulate me?” He asks, his glare making a fiery comeback.

The old man smiles.

“Snake,” Han grumbles, and apparently Kenobi takes it as a compliment, because his smile, from old and benign, turns mischievous. But it’s a smile which invites Han to share its joy, not a smile at Han’s expense, but a smile with Han, and despite himself, Han answers it with his own.

**************************

Luke is helping prep the Y-Wings for the flight to their rendezvous point, since all the X-Wings are ready. Working helped. Working, he understands. Flight engines don’t suddenly sprout family members. They don’t lie for years, pretending to be the more or less harmless and slightly touched in the head friendly neighbourhood hermit, when they are in reality space monks turned bodyguards for secret children of long-ago murdered friends. And also, perhaps he wouldn’t have needed a secret bodyguard, if he had raised under a false name, like Leia!

Oh Force, like his  _ sister _ Leia….

Leia isn’t as angry as himself about their long hidden brotherhood, but he suspects that’s because the trauma of Alderaan and the necessary work for the Rebel Alliance are taking precedence.

Give it a little time. He’s pretty sure the spine of iron he already found in her is matched by a temper of much more volatile components.

Luke feels Ben entering the hangar. Every minute almost, the Force opens him a little more to sensations he doesn’t understand. It’s like an avalanche, and Ben explained it’s because Leia and him are working together, that it would be much harder if one of them tried to do it alone.

It’s terrifying.

It’s comforting.

It’s like a promise he will never be alone, as he can feel the nervous energy of every Rebel, and Ben and Leia more closely, the old man a point of light like a flame in the night, and Leia more turbulent, like a slash-and-burn fire, destructive perhaps but with a promise of more life reborn from the blaze.

It’s comforting, but when he’s angry with Ben, it’s a little inconvenient to feel themselves linked together like that.

“Came to tell me about more long lost family members?”

There is like a ping in the Force, almost a bell sound and Luke wouldn’t have understood, days before. Now he throws his wrench on the floor, unconcerned with their audience.

“You’ve got to be kidding me!!  ** _Ben_ ** !!”

“Luke, this isn’t –“

“No, not, let me guess, it’s a triplet. And it’s Han! Or better, Chewie!”

“Luke!”

The young man turns and on the old Jedi’s face, he sees what he didn’t feel in the Force, untrained and nascent, no matter his powers. On Ben’s face, he sees despair, worn like a twenty-year old wound, and still bleeding.

“Ben?” Luke asks, and suddenly he’s nine years old again and Ben just conveniently found him lost in the desert; he’s thirteen years old and Ben just conveniently rescued him from a slaver’s ship that wanted to fatten its pockets before leaving the planet; he’s fifteen years old and Ben just happened to pass the canyon where he was cornered by a Tusken raid.

Now that he thinks about it, he should have understood some things much sooner.

“Luke,” Ben says, and he stops. Luke puts his two hands on the hermit’s shoulders.

“I’m there,” he tries to reassure.

“Luke, there is something I haven’t told you and Leia, but it’s so terrible, I haven’t said it since the day I told it to Owen and Beru and I’m not sure I have the strength…”

“It will be okay,” Luke says, “you know it will. You’ll rely on us and it will be okay. You’re not alone.”

And if Ben’s eyes are perhaps wet, Luke doesn’t say it. A little awkward, he goes for a hug.

No matter what, they are not alone. Not one of them. The rest of the Rebels have made themselves scarce, but he suddenly feels Leia, at the other end of the hangar. She felt something like off and came to them. Behind her, Han is ranting, not aware yet of the current of tension between the three Force users.

Luke thinks of a little hut in the middle of the desert. He thinks about Owen and Beru, and Bail and Breha who he will never know.

“No one of us are alone,” Luke says with conviction and he knows, with certainty well beyond simple instinct, how true it will always be.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on tumblr, under the same username, come and say hi !


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